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F or the next hour, he lays out what he knows—Harlow's network, his contacts, his probable escape routes. The man is methodical, I'll give him that. His intelligence is comprehensive, his analysis surgical.

I feel the needle nudging in the opposite direction. What if Volkov is telling the truth and Killion was using me to get to Harlow? And what about Sienna? Was she in on the ruse, too?

As the afternoon stretches into evening, the dynamics shift.

The room grows smaller, charged with something beyond the tactical discussion.

I'm acutely aware of his eyes on me when I'm not looking, of the predatory grace in every movement, of the careful distance he maintains—not from fear, but calculation.

Look, I’ve always had a thing for the bad boy. It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to realize that Kidnapper Comrade is starting to turn my crank a bit.

Besides, there’s just something feral about him lurking beneath the surface that I find super hot, even if I’m pretty sure he would slit my throat the second I wasn’t useful to him.

When he offers vodka, I accept. The liquor burns clean and sharp, warming me from inside as night falls beyond the windows.

I still don't know where we are—somewhere in Eastern Europe, judging by the architecture and the brief glimpse of Cyrillic on a document on his desk.

A safe house, but one used regularly, with personal touches that suggest Volkov comes here often.

Which meant, I’m a long way from home. It’s not like I can just catch a bus back to HQ to grill Killion for being a duplicitous prick.

"You should rest," he says eventually, noticing my fatigue. "Tomorrow will be difficult day."

"I'm fine," I insist, even as exhaustion pulls at my edges. The ketamine has mostly worn off, leaving me with the bone-deep weariness of too much adrenaline and too little sleep.

"You are swaying in chair," he observes dryly. "Stubborn, but not useful."

I glare, but he's right. I can barely keep my eyes open. "Fine. But I need clothes. And my own room."

"Clothes, yes. Own room?" He shakes his head. "Building has only one bedroom with proper security. You stay there."

"With you?" The question comes out sharper than intended.

His eyes glitter with something like amusement. "Concerned for your virtue, kotyonok ? After Victor Reese and so many others? Iv’e seen you fuck.”

Heat flares in my cheeks—anger, not embarrassment. "I fuck who I choose, when I choose. Not because I'm cornered in some Eastern Bloc safe house with a known killer."

"Good policy," he says, unfazed. "I also only fuck those who choose me. Makes for more satisfying encounter."

He stands, stretching like a big cat, all lean muscle and coiled power. "You take bed. I take chair. Professional courtesy."

Points for irony, acting like the gentleman when he literally dragged me across the country in a drugged stupor just to coerce me into working with him.

Yeah, real courteous, but whatever —I’m too tired to bitch.

I return to the bedroom, find a t-shirt and sweatpants laid out—both too big, both clean. I change quickly, hyper-aware of the door between rooms, of Volkov on the other side.

The bed feels like heaven after everything—firm mattress, clean sheets. I sink into it, intending to stay alert, to plan my next move, to figure out if I'm making the biggest mistake of my life trusting Volkov even this far.

Instead, I'm asleep between one breath and the next.

I dream of fire and falling bodies. Of Killion's eyes as he handed me to the wolves. Of a woman I don’t recognize, screaming at me to run but there’s something preventing my feet from moving.

I wake gasping, sweat-soaked, to find Volkov beside the bed, hand on my shoulder.

"Nightmare," he says, statement not question. "Drink."

He offers water. I take it, gulping greedily, trying to shake off the dream's tendrils. The clock reads 3:17 AM. Beyond the window, nothing but darkness and the skeleton fingers of winter trees.

"Sorry," I mutter, suddenly aware of how I must look—wild-eyed, sweaty, vulnerable.

He gives a cold shrug, not moving from his position. "Nightmares are weapons. Brain dismantling itself. Makes you weak." His eyes flick over me, assessing the damage. "Control it or it controls you."

In the half-light, he looks exactly like what he is—a predator at rest. The stubble doesn't soften his jaw but darkens it like war paint. His scar pulls tight across his brow, a permanent scowl carved by someone's blade.

With his jacket gone and sleeves rolled, his forearms display a museum of violence—exit wounds, knife scars, burn marks. Nothing accidental. Each one a lesson that didn't kill him.

"For a professional killer, you're surprisingly full of shit," I rasp, throat raw from screams I don't remember.

"Professional killers are human too," he replies, taking the empty glass. "Despite what Killion taught you."

"Why do you hate him so much?" I ask. "Killion, I mean. It feels personal."

Something flickers across his face—an old pain, quickly masked. "We have history."

"What kind of history?"

His eyes find mine in the half-dark. "Kind written in blood and betrayal."

The answer should shut me down, but it does the opposite. In this liminal space between night and morning, between enemy and ally, I want to know more. Need to know more.

"Tell me," I press, shifting closer. "If we're working together, I deserve to know."

He's silent so long I think he won't answer. Then:

"Killion left me to die in the Budapest sewers."

He taps his side—calm, flat, like he’s reciting a grocery list.

"I crawled out on my own. Took three days."

I grab his arm before I can think better of it. "Show me."

For a second, his eyes go dead—a shark before it bites. I brace for pain, maybe a broken wrist.

But instead, he yanks his shirt open, buttons flying like shrapnel against the wall.

Okay.

Dramatic? Yes.

Fucking hot? Also yes.

His torso is a war zone—puckered bullet holes, knife slashes, burn marks blooming across muscle like he's been systematically tortured by professionals. But the most brutal? An ugly starburst below his ribs where a hollow point expanded on impact.

“Killion did this?” I trace it, feeling his skin flinch under my touch.

I took his silence as an affirmative. "So you both tried to kill each other. That's your big revelation? Seems like an occupational hazard in this gig.”

His hand catches my wrist, fingers digging into bone. "You understand nothing."

“I understand enough.”

Something snaps between us—some invisible wire holding back the inevitable. I grab his face, or he grabs my hair—doesn't matter who moves first. We collide like wrecking balls, all teeth and tongue and zero tenderness.

He tastes like nicotine and violence. I bite his lip hard enough that copper floods my mouth. He growls—an actual fucking animal growl—and slams me back against the headboard hard enough to crack plaster.

"This what you want?" he says, one hand crushing my windpipe, the other tearing at the shirt I'm wearing. "To fuck the monster?"

I claw at his chest, leaving red furrows that well with blood. "Better than fucking a liar."

The shirt disintegrates in his grip. He shoves me flat, face against the mattress, knee forcing my legs apart. I buck against him, not to escape but to make him work for it.

"Still fighting," he says, voice gone guttural. "Even now."

I twist, catch his jaw with my elbow. It's not enough to hurt him, just enough to make him angrier. "Always."

He flips me over, pins my wrists above my head with one hand. The other rips my underwear aside like tissue paper. His eyes are blown black, his breathing ragged. For a split second, he pauses—the last check before crossing a line.

"Do it," I hiss. "Or are you all talk, Volkov?"

Whatever restraint he has left snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight. He slams into me without preamble, no gentleness, no preparation. The pain is bright and clarifying, a reminder that I'm still alive in a world where everything else has turned to ash.

"Yes," I gasp, not in pleasure but victory. Drawing out the beast. Making him as unhinged as I feel.

He sets a punishing pace, hips pistoning with mechanical precision. The headboard slams against the wall, cracks spider-webbing through decades-old plaster. I rake my nails down his back, leaving trails of blood that drip onto my stomach.

"Tell me," he growls, fingers tangled in my hair. "Killion. What did he offer you?"

"Go to hell," I gasp between brutal thrusts that drive the air from my lungs.

His teeth scrape my exposed throat, not a kiss but a threat. "Wrong answer." He slams harder, using pain as interrogation. "Everyone breaks. Matter of time."

"Fine," I snarl, matching his rhythm with savage pushback. "Purpose. He offered fucking purpose. Happy now?"

He flips me over with military efficiency, face grinding into the pillow, ass hoisted in the air like merchandise at auction.

One hand clamps onto my hip, fingers digging into flesh hard enough that tomorrow's bruises are guaranteed.

The other hand pushes my face deeper into the mattress until breathing becomes a luxury I have to fight for.

His cock drives deeper from this angle, battering into my cervix with each brutal thrust. The pain blurs with something that isn't quite pleasure—more like electricity short-circuiting my nervous system. Each impact jolts my spine, drives the breath from my lungs in strangled gasps.

Sweat drips from his chest onto my back, hot and slick. The bed frame creaks dangerously beneath us, metal joints protesting as he uses my body like a punching bag with a pulse. His breath comes in animal grunts.

My knees slide wider on the sweat-soaked sheets, opening me to deeper violation. He takes the invitation, adjusting his angle to hit that spot inside that makes my vision fragment into white-hot static.

A sound I don't recognize tears from my throat—part scream, part sob, all surrender to a biological imperative I can't fight.

“Always the same lie,” Volkov's voice is sandpaper rough above me. “Always they fall for it.”

We're not fucking anymore. We're trying to break each other, to find the weak points, to prove something neither of us can name. The mattress springs screech in protest. Sweat makes our skin slip and catch in a sickening rhythm.

I reach between my legs, desperate for release, for oblivion, for anything to shut out the noise in my head.

Volkov knocks my hand away, replaces it with his own.

His fingers are brutal, precise, manipulating my body with the same cold efficiency he probably brings to dismantling bombs or breaking necks.

"Cum,” he orders, like it's a military command. "Now."

I want to tell him that I don’t cum on demand but my body betrays me in a humiliating detonation of pleasure. I scream into the pillow, the sound raw and animal. He follows immediately after, his whole body going rigid, a stream of Russian curses cutting the air like machine gun fire.

For one second, two, we're frozen —predator and prey, though I'm not sure which is which anymore. Then he pulls out and away, leaving me empty and aching in more ways than I can count.

No condom. No protection.

As long as Volkov isn’t crawling with some kind of gross STD, getting raw-dogged is fine — all the dolls are implanted with birth control so I’m not worried about getting knocked up.

But disease is something else. That would be the icing on this fucked up cake.

I roll over, staring at the ceiling. My body feels used, broken, alive in a way it hasn't since Killion recruited me. Volkov sits on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, blood from my nails tracing crimson streaks down his back.

The room looks like a crime scene. Sheets torn and lamp shattered on the floor. Plaster dust covering everything like dirty snow. My thighs are already bruising, lip split, throat raw from screaming or his hand or both.

Volkov rises, a lean-mean fucking machine, utterly unself-conscious in his nakedness. His body is a battlefield—old scars, fresh wounds, all worn with the same indifference. “You fuck like wild animal,” he said, a note of approval in his voice. “Is good to release tension before job.”

I do feel more relaxed.

The flame from his lighter illuminates his face—all sharp angles and hollow eyes. He offers me a cigarette. I take it, let him light it, inhale poison to chase away the taste of him in my mouth.

"This doesn't change anything," I say, exhaling smoke. "I still don't trust you."

"Good." He doesn't bother sitting, just stands there smoking, his spent cock glistening with my pussy juices, watching me with those predator eyes. "Trust is luxury we cannot afford."

"What happens now?" I ask, not bothering to cover myself. What's the point? He's already seen, touched, tasted everything.

"Now we finish mission," he says simply. “Together, will find Harlow.”

"And then?"

"Then we kill him." No hesitation, no qualifiers. Just simple, cold-blooded intent. "Slowly, if time permits."

I should be horrified by the casual way he discusses torture and execution.

Instead, I find myself nodding. Maybe I’m buying time.

Maybe I’m switching teams. Not sure yet.

“I need to shower," I say, standing, legs unsteady beneath me.

Not from emotion. Just physics. The laws of action and reaction played out on bruised flesh.

"Through there," he gestures to another hidden door. "Don't think of running. No place to go but wolves."

In the bathroom—cracked tiles, rusted pipes, mirror spotted with age—I examine myself. Bruises bloom like ink spills across my skin. Bite marks on my neck. Fingerprints around my throat. Eyes too bright, too alive.

I barely recognize myself. Not Landry the bored housewife. Not Nova the perfect Doll. Someone new, someone forged in blood and betrayal and the animal thing that just happened in that bed.

The water's barely lukewarm, but I stand under it anyway, watching pink swirls circle the drain—his blood, my blood, impossible to separate. My mind replays Volkov's scars, Killion's betrayal, the total destruction of life as I know it.

I'm so lost in thought I don't hear him enter until the shower curtain rips aside. He's naked, but this time there's a Glock in his hand.

"Get down," he orders, voice flat as a battlefield execution. "We have company."